Mariana Hernandez wrote:
March 22 at 3:21 PM ·
Let’s talk about public education.
Here’s the greatest hits playlist I keep hearing multiple times:
“Before the Department of Education, the U.S. was number one. Now we rank 31st. We spend more than anyone and 28% of grads can’t even read. The DOE failed. Let the states handle it again.”
Sounds bold, right?
Too bad most of it is dead wrong.
Let’s break it down. Slowly. Loudly.
1. “We were number one before the Department of Education.”
Oh? Says who?
The U.S. Department of Education was created in 1980.
The PISA test (the gold standard for comparing education across countries) didn’t even exist until 2000.
A LOT more under the cut.
There were no international rankings before that. No standardized tests between nations. No way to compare performance.
So where’s the proof we were “number one”?
There isn’t any. Because it didn’t exist.
That’s not a fact, it’s nostalgia.
You weren’t first in a race that hadn’t started yet.
2. “Now we rank 31st.”
In what, exactly?
Because there are two kinds of education rankings, and people love to smash them together like they mean the same thing.
A. PISA = actual test scores from real kids
This tests 15-year-olds around the world in:
Reading
Math
Science
U.S. PISA 2022 ( it’s done every 3 years) results:
6th in reading
13th in science
28th in math
We’re not failing. We’re holding our own, without training our kids for it, by the way (more on that later).
And remember: in 2000, PISA had 30 countries. Now it’s 80+. So yes, the ranking shifted. That doesn’t mean we tanked. It means the field grew.
B. Education system indexes ( like WPR) how the system looks on paper
This is where the “31st” stat comes from. These rankings measure:
Enrollment
Literacy
Spending
Teacher ratios
Graduation rates
System efficiency
That’s not about how smart our students are it’s about how effective our bureaucracy is. And yeah, ours is a hot mess. But that’s a systems problem, because we are decentralized. It’s not a student problem.
3. “We spend more than anyone!”
We do.
Because we’re massive we are the size of an entire continent, unequal, and decentralized to the point of dysfunction.
Want to compare?
Let’s look at some of those “top countries” from the WPR and match them to U.S. states by population:
South Korea (51M) = California + part of Texas
Denmark (6M) = Wisconsin
Netherlands (17.5M) = New York
Belgium (11.7M) = Ohio
Slovenia (2M) = Nebraska
Those countries are the size of states.
They have:
One national curriculum
One funding system
One set of laws
We have:
50 state systems
Over 13,000 school districts
No national standards
Local property tax funding, so rich zip codes thrive and poor ones drown
Some kids go to brand new schools with 3D printers and solar panels.
Others freeze through winter in buildings with leaking ceilings and no library.
Same country.
Same flag.
Two different worlds.
Of course we spend more.
We’re funding chaos.
4. “28% of grads can’t read past a 5th-grade level.”
That number? Totally made up.
It’s pulled from a misused stat of adults that has no national backing.
We do have literacy issues.
But they’re not because kids are lazy or dumb.
They’re because:
Early childhood education is optional, not guaranteed
Schools in low-income areas don’t get the same resources
Reading specialists are being cut, not hired
Many children come to school hungry, sick, or scared
Let’s stop blaming kids for failing systems.
They can’t read when the school can’t even afford books.
5. “The Department of Education is a failure.” Or maybe… you just don’t understand what it does.
Let’s be clear.
The Department of Education does not:
Choose your kid’s curriculum
Write textbooks
Approve lesson plans
Invent Common Core
Control what your school teaches
All of that? State and local control.
What the Department of Education actually does:
Enforces civil rights in education (Title IX, IDEA, disability rights, racial equity)
Sends federal funding to underfunded schools
Provides support for English learners, special ed, and rural students
Administers Pell Grants and federal student loans
Gathers data so we know what’s working (and what’s not)
You kill the DoED? You cut:
Support for kids with disabilities
Protections for non-English speakers
Funding for rural schools
Grants for low-income students
Accountability for states that are actively failing children
You hurt little kids in big ways.
6. “Let the states decide.” Newsflash: they already do.
People scream “let the states decide!” like they’re fighting for freedom.
Buddy, the states HAVE BEEN deciding.
There is no national curriculum.
There is no federal standard for what kids learn.
That’s why:
Evolution is taught in some states and questioned in others
Black history is expanded in some districts and banned in others
Some states offer world class public education… and others? Barely the basics
So if you're mad about what your kid is learning or not learning, don’t blame the DoED.
Blame your state. Blame your local school board.
Because that’s who’s in charge.
The problem isn’t too much federal control, it’s not enough support for the states that are failing their students.
7. “Other countries prep for PISA. We don’t.”
Top performing countries like Singapore and South Korea train for PISA.
They build their curriculum around it. They do mock tests. They align teaching methods with the skills the test measures.
Our kids? They show up, take it cold, and go back to class like nothing happened.
No one even explains what the test is.
And guess what?
We still came in 6th in reading.
Imagine what we could do if we actually prepared.
The real issue? They want to abolish the DoED.
Not because it failed.
But because it does things they don’t like:
It protects marginalized kids
It enforces civil rights
It sends money where states don’t want to
It holds people accountable
Getting rid of it won’t hurt your wealthy district with robotics clubs and parent-funded libraries.
It will hurt:
Disabled students
Low-income schools
Rural districts with no tax base
Immigrant kids
English learners
Students who rely on someone, anyone, to fight for them
This isn’t about shrinking government.
It’s about shrinking opportunity, shrinking equity, and letting kids fall through the cracks on purpose.
So next time someone says:
“We were better off before the Department of Education…”
Ask them for data.
They won’t have it.
But now you do.
(Everything in this post is based on real data: PISA 2022, Department of Education records, NCES, and education policy research. You want receipts? I have them.)
Edited to clarify: DOE refers to the Department of Energy, while DoED (or ED) refers to the Department of Education
